Roots

"you're not in Kansas anymore....." seems to be a phrase I am hearing a lot when I describe what I hear/see/experience living in a city. I am a country girl at heart. Not cowgirl country, don't own a pair of cowboy boots, though I desperately want a pair. I didn't grow up on a farm. But there were open fields, and garden plots....and livestock just a walk or short drive away.


And then we ran into some personal circumstances which made us move out of the area. My safe, small, "Kansas". A place where being "green" was the normal thing to do. Where there were a plethora of health food stores, co-ops, other mom's that used cloth diapers. A place that has just recently banned the use of plastic shopping bags!


And then there's here. I actually had to search out a recycling bin. I had to put my recyclables out a few weeks in a row, making the lot of it more obvious than the week before for the garbologist to take it. And I refused to look, because I am afraid it was just dumped in with the rest of the trash.

This place has over 100,000 people living here. There is not one health food store. The organic food sections are laughable. Natural cleaning supplies, yeah, riiight.

I have no yard to plant a garden, and even if I did, I would be afraid to dig and plant. I mean who wants to slice a carrot or potato to find it's grown around a hypodermic needle?! Pretty sad when you're afraid the dirt is too dirty to use.

But this is where I am, so I've been trying to make the most of it...

 

This was HOURS of clean-up, and at least a dozen HUGE contractor bags full. Some so heavy we had to hoist them onto the bed of a pickup truck to get them to the curb. At least it's progress.

 

About the garden.....dirt's too dirty. I am on the second floor. No one recycles here. Ok, empty formula cans, some twine, and creativity......

 

........And I have my own version of a container garden!

 

 

Since seedlings seem to be fairly rare here, and very pricey, all the plants were started from seed, something we'd not done before.....or at least not in recycled egg cartons in the house, and then on the porch before. It was a great learning experience for the smallest child, and made for great memories. Who could forget hearing him tell Daddy all about "picture-cynthesis" when he got home from work?!


Besides planting things, and cleaning things up......I also make things.....but that's a whole other post ;)